The early adopters of social media have always paid close attention to innovations from FriendFeed so there was tremendous interest this week when the service announced a significant beta release. VentureBeat described the new features in mostly positive terms, calling it 'the most intuitive interface' they've seen yet. Mashable was also enthusiastic, with perhaps one telling caveat being that the new release felt like a web based Twitter client. The “I'm not Actually a Geek” blog offered side by side screen shots including a Facebook comparison and Broadstuff did their amusing 'read between the lines' interpretation of the forces behind the announcement.

Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed are all trying to find ways to manage the real-time firehose. Bwana went into depth on Friendfeed's new filters that many bloggers felt were quite promising. Still, TechCrunch wondered if things moved too fast for the average user and VentureBeat came back to describe FriendFeed's efforts in 'be careful what you wish for' terms.

There were, of course, some voices who felt that the upgrade still left things to be desired. “The Social” found users that were a bit perplexed. Louis Gray suggested 10 possible next steps and Mashable streamed in with 5 more. The user revolt at FriendFeed was miniscule (by Facebook standards) with less than 200 members by Thursday morning.

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